While Wyoming’s Powder River Basin is ground zero for the growing battle over coalbed methane drilling, the conflict is causing flare-ups from Montana to New Mexico.

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Coverage from Mother Jones and High Country News

A Rural Flare-Up
By Rebecca Clarren
November 4, 2002
Throughout the Intermountain West, plans for coalbed methane development on private land are pitting county officials against state regulators, and rural residents against the gas industry.

The New Range Wars
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
November/December 2002
They come on your land and take what lies beneath. In Wyoming’s coalbed methane country, it’s the ranchers versus the wildcatters.

Open Season on Open Spaces
By Bob Burtman
July/August 2002
The Bush administration has made energy development on public lands its priority number one. The wild West will never be the same.

From the high alpine valleys of Montana to the border grasslands of New Mexico, the energy rush is on. We review how the Bush administration’s plans for accelerating energy production in the west is threatening ten wilderness areas.

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